Sunday, March 17, 2013

Cut the cost, not the fun | thetelegraph.com.au: "For Karen and Michael Knight, of Kellyville Ridge, attending the show is a family tradition. They take advantage of the free public transport and catch a bus to the show with their children. This year they will have Tianna, 7, Noah, 3, and 10-month-old Ashton in tow."

So what if the well runs dry?: "A few days into a significant Middle-East or south-eastern Asian conflict, Australian motorists and trucking companies would be immobilised, urban public transport overwhelmed and supplies of life-saving medications would start running out. Within a week, shops would be stripped bare and farmers would be running out of fuel for their tractors and water pumps.

The reason is that about 85 per cent of Australia's transport petroleum now comes from overseas, as either refined or unrefined product. Our dependency on imported refined fuels will rise sharply when two more domestic oil refineries close in the next two years. In a country blessed with more energy choices than almost any other on Earth, transport fuels are our gangrenous Achilles heel."

Greens' Safe Climate Bill

Travelling with a light footprint
Australia's cities and suburbs are increasingly being built around cars, not people, and more of our intercity travel and freight is going by road or air instead of rail. In a world where peak oil and climate change are converging, this has to change fast.
We have to redesign our cities for people instead of cars, with urban villages connected by fast, efficient and convenient buses, trams and trains, cycleways and pedestrian paths. We have to give ourselves real alternatives to flying between cities. We have to end the subsidies to fossil fuel based transport. We have to think a few steps into the future, instead of repeating the same old mistakes of the past. ReadMore [pdf]